Chaplain and hairdresser

3:17pm I’m my office in south Phoenix. Listening to music. I wonder what my wife would say if I proposed we move to a small town? I would get a job as a hospice chaplain with good health benefits and she could work as a cosmetologist. I have my Mdiv. She has her license. She cut our daughters hair yesterday. She also cut and colored our daughters friends hair. And she cut my hair. So many years ago, years before our daughter was born, before the WIL, that was the plan. We were going to live our dreams. I wanted to write and work as a chaplain. She just wanted to style hair. Maybe we lost our way. Perhaps now is the time to get back on track

Highlights negative

12:56pm the worst thing about the ending of the relationship with the WIL is how it highlights the negative. There was so much happiness and beauty. For years she filled me with absolute joy. the highest highs of my life are memories of her. Not even close. But now all I can feel is sadness. Remember the pulling away. The silence. I know the beauty still existed. But the painful loss has overcome my ability to recall it easily

The last time

12:35pm the last time the WIL and I were physically together she asked me if I had been with someone else. She asked out of curiosity. Not anger not accusing. That she would ask me broke my heart. I interpreted it that she wanted to confess she had been with someone and wanted to feel better thinking I had as well. The truth is I had been with a couple of other people at that time. Nothing serious. A couple of random hook ups. But I said no. I professed my purity. It sounded fake even to me. But I couldn’t have that conversation with her. Even though my body had been with someone else my heart and soul had not. That is still the case two years later. It is frustrating. I accept the WIL is gone. I accept she has moved on. I want to move on but still feel twisted up. I can’t be intimate, I can’t date because that emotional connection is still with her. I feel like I gave her a gift I can’t get back. And though she doesn’t care for it and I need it she still keeps it. She hasn’t felt the need to reach out to me for physical or emotional comfort in over a year. I just want to let go like she has so I can reclaim my life. No hard feelings.

Office

12:24pm Monday afternoon. I just finished lunch. I have the same thing for lunch everyday. I have some crackers, peanuts and a piece of cheese. Most of the time I have some beef jerky but not always. I am in my office with the door open. I almost always leave it open. Sometimes I close it for privacy like when I want to put my feet up on my desk or lay down in the floor. It isn’t that I am secretive. I just don’t want to be seen with my feet in the desk or lying on the floor. Today has been a weird day thinking about the WIL. It is a rare day where I remember how frustrating things were with her at the end. Over the course of our relationship we would have arguments. Sometimes we would get pretty heated. . Always by text mind you. Or over the phone. Though we could get mad we were both passionate and committed. No matter how angry we got we both hurt. Nothing felt right until we resolved the issues. Then a couple of years ago she started pulling away. She would push my buttons, I would get passionate in an argument but she wouldn’t engage. She would just disappear for days/weeks on end. No matter how much I asked her to talk to me she would be silent. It was so painful. I had all the love, fear and desire roiling through me and she just was a ghost. She was like that a lot towards the end. I keep thinking of a million reasons why. Was she busy? Did she not care for me? Did she find someone else? No matter the answer the result was painful. I am remembering that today and actually glad we don’t talk.

Awkward conversation part 2

6:15pm Sunday evening, laying in bed in chandler. I feel more elaboration is needed. Our marriage has been at a stalemate for years. My wife is hurt because of my cheating. I broke her trust. She has never been able to move past that. I failed her and our vows. Should we have gotten a divorce? Should she have kicked me out? Or should I have left to be with the WIL? So many questions that never were resolved. We talked about divorce all those years ago but with a three year old daughter we did not go through with it. So we are platonic partners who survive. And deal with things when they arise. We get along well and have a functional existence. But that is not to say there are not problems. For my part I have my own issues with my wife. The surveillance . Her tracking activity on my daughters devices. As she was explaining how our daughters behavior reminded her of my actions all I could think about was her putting spyware on my computer. As she sat there and made my daughter explain every single site she visited I wondered is my daughter going to start resenting her too? today we actually talked about divorce again. It is probably inevitable. And it might be good to finally end what we have become. Then she cut my hair, we planned their visit out here next week and discussed how to pay for school in the fall. Marriage is crazy

Songs from the ride home

5:47pm, reclining on my couch in chandler. On the ride home from Orange County three songs reminded me of the WIL and Utah. “…a little voice inside my head said, ‘don’t look back, you can never look back.’” Boys of summer, Don Henley. “All I do is miss you and the way we used to be…” Romeo and Juliet, Dire Straights. “Good bye to all my friends at home, goodbye to people I’ve trusted. I got to go out and make my way I might get rich, you know, I might get busted.” Jet Airliner, Steve Miller Band.

Affirmation

3:40pm to be loved by the WIL was to be affirmed. All I cared about was her opinion. If she loved me I was doing it right. Whatever “it” was. Now I am no longer part of her life. That energy no longer exists for me. To be outside that energy after feeling it for so many years leaves my soul empty.

The WIL

8:49pm sometimes I marvel how I was ever worthy to be the WIL’s. The farther removed from our time together the less I feel worthy of her. I don’t think I could even speak if I saw her. She moved on without me and I can’t stop thinking about her. She kicked my ass. I can’t believe there was a time she loved me as insanely as I love her.

Rain and the WIL

10:55am it has been rainy and overcast all morning. Nice to have cooler temperatures. I have been thinking about the WIL. It breaks my heart to call her that and not say her name. I haven’t seen her in over a year and a half. Yet I can’t stop thinking about her. Love, intimacy, sex. Those things are meaningless without her. If I try to experience them all I feel is sadness.

In my head

12:24pm do I care about anything other than what is happening inside my head? I am the most self-absorbed person in the world. Not egotistical, just inward focused. Take the WIL for example. I have written about her, thought about her many times. She exists in my mind a certain way. But I haven’t seen her in over a year and a half. At work I have all these plans to grow census but I seldom interact with the people who could give me business. I am delusional. I believe what I do and say in my mind is real. Yet it doesn’t translate to real world interactions. I have no relationship with the woman I love and with the people that could give me success. No wonder I am losing my mind.